Celebration Anxiety

This past week was amazing and anxiety-inducing all at the same time. How on Earth was I going to start watching what I eat right before a holiday weekend, with my sister visiting, a wedding, a couple of lunch meetings, sending Bea off to school, and any number of other factors and issues?

By just doing it, that's how.

Life happens. There will ALWAYS be weddings and funerals and birthdays and celebrations and life events, and using them as an excuse to start "next week" or have a "bad day" is lame. Here is where I draw inspiration from Sooz: the girl drinks and socializes to her heart's content. She eats (essentially) whatever she wants, within reason. She balances her socializing with training like a mad woman and also being careful about her eating: if she has a sushi dinner date planned, she will eat gently the rest of the day to accommodate. If she wants a crazy insane cheeseburger, she works out to cancel out the intake. She's never minced words about that. If our law school tribe asks her to go out to lunch and we're going somewhere incompatible with her plan for that day, she simply declines. We all know it's not personal with Sooz...while we love her company, and she ours, we just get it. It's not personal to us; it's personal to her, and we all have priorities. I think law school has desensitized us to taking things personally; I am far more likely to take a "no" at face value and move on than ever before.

And so, thinking about Sooz, I approached last week by eating gently whenever nothing was planned, and trying not to worry too much about situations like Jon & Julia's wedding last Saturday, or the State Fair, or whatever. I hate denying myself when I'm out! What's the point of going to a wedding if you're going to feel guilty about eating wedding cake and boozing up the groom? (For the record, I probably need to temper this attitude a *little*. Fuzzy navels all night and three(!) pieces of wedding cake might be considered a little excessive, but I only did one tequila shot with the groom. Only one! And I do love myself the tequila. PATRON, baby!) I also did a little mitigation by choosing the vegetarian plated dinner, which turned out to be a delicious butternut squash ravioli with leeks and a very light cream sauce. NOM.

As for the State Fair, well... let's be frank: there was no temperance there. None can be had, I'm convinced. The choice then, is to go once a year and get it out of your system, and give yourself the day to enjoy, or to not go at all.

My goal for last week was to eat breakfast every day, and I'm proud to say I did it. I hauled the blender out, and when I didn't have breakfast plans, I made a 5-Factor Smoothie for myself, following Harley Pasternak's recipe (below). I plan to continue this, as it really worked for me. Smoothies are quick, portable and tasty, and have enough natural sugar in the fruit to sate my sweet tooth.

Mara had to work late last Thursday, so we put off our weigh-in until Saturday evening (last night), before we went out for her birthday(which...awesome! Donny Dirk's Zombie Den gets two thumbs up, and Psycho Suzi's lives up to its reputation.)


The Results
Last week's weight: 288.0
This week's weight: 285.6
Weekly change: -2.4
Net change: -2.4

Not bad for a busy, social week!
This week's goals: continue with the smoothies/breakfast, and exercise a total of 180 minutes. That's 3x an hour-long workout, or 6x 30 mins, or most likely, 2 hour-long sessions and 2 30 minute sessions. I'm going to make it a point to get baby Elle in the stroller and go for a nice long walk a couple times this week, and we have found a new babysitter, and the school pool opens this week for fall hours, so SWIMMING!